


Pulling Out

by objectlesson



Category: AFI, Justin Timberlake - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, crash love era, hustin burganlake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:08:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can always pull out if you like it too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pulling Out

**Author's Note:**

> I’m a big fan of double entendre titles. This is my first Hustin Burganlake story that isn’t crack, humor, or PWP. In fact, it’s motherfucking angsty and dramatic, which sort of defies the point of the pairing, I guess, but I’m well onto my way to insanity anyway with the mere notion of Hustin Burganlake anyway. Ps, I love Dolly Parton. PPs, I really think it's necessary that everyone who reads this should also listen to "International Harvester" by Craig Morgan. Because it's the worst song EVER.

Justin is afraid of snakes, and Hunter has one tattooed on his forearm. Hunter supposes that this is an omen, one of many radical differences between them that he should catalogue and keep on file in a nice little cabinet, so when this mess blows up in his face he’ll at least know why. They’re at this hole in the wall vegan place Hunter doesn’t even _like_ in Echo Park, on opposite sides of the booth, regarding each other with lowered brows and nervous hands. Hunter keeps on taking the frail paper wrapper his straw was in and folding it into different patterns, trying to avoid eye contact because he doesn’t know what to say to Justin. Justin in his decidedly Average Joe track suit jacket and jeans, looking surprisingly normal, if not anxious under his glasses.

Hunter is thinking about a lot of things. The various excuses he could use to back out of this thing, the tickets home he could buy before this becomes round trip. He is thinking about all the things they don’t have in common, the drastically different worlds they live in despite inhabiting the same city. He’s thinking that all he shares with Justin is that they both wear similar pairs of black plastic framed designer glasses, that they both make music which in some universe means _something_ but not here. Aside from those insignificancies, however...

“What does the snake mean?” Justin asks finally, breaking the tense silence and startling Hunter, whose gaze snaps up with a near audible crack, their eyes finally meeting despite the two layers of glass they’re separated by. It hurts to look at him, mainly because Justin is so golden and broken open and mercury-bright, but also because his hand has maneuvered across the table, the very tips of his middle and index fingers pressed to the inked snake’s underbelly. They’re touching nowhere but these centimeters of skin, and though seconds ago Hunter was contemplating the statement _I don’t know if I can do this anymore.I don’t even know you..._ all it takes are those centimeters to make his entire body to yearn for him, pressing against the biting edge of the table between their bodies.

That’s all it takes, and he doesn’t know if that should scare him, or make him braver. So he shrugs, resisting the knee-jerk urge to pull his arm away in fear of liking things too much. “Nothing, really.” He admits, rubbing self-consciously at his arm like it still hurt from the needle and ink. 

“I thought all your tattoos were supposed to mean something, Mr. Big Shot Rockstar,” Justin says slyly, eyes glinting under his glasses. His voice is low, tugging at places in Hunter whose mouth is dry when he responds, “Well, when you get enough tattoos, you start to get stuff you like just because you like it. I’m not saying they get less important, but you don’t feel the need to place as much symbolism on images you think are cool,” he explains. It’s an unnecessarily long and ineloquent analysis, because the way Justin is looking at him makes him feel slow and stupid, like he’s incapable of saying the right thing under such a gaze.

Justin’s gazes are genuinely interested and non-judgmental, like he just wants to _know_ everything about Hunter, what tattoos mean to him and what gets under his skin, why there’s a snake on his arm. Hunter feels like he needs to keep talking, wishes (for once) that Davey was here to flawlessly string his thoughts together and present an accurate version of what he’s trying to say. Davey is good at that, at getting through to people. Hunter is good at a lot of things, but articulation in the face of things he likes too much is not one of them. 

“You think snakes are cool, then,” Justin says, rough finger pads sliding up further towards the inside of Hunter’s elbow, a ridiculously subtle gesture but still, Hunter’s reeling. He tries to recapture the comfort of what he told himself when this first started happening, _you can always pull out if you like it too much_. That was awhile ago, however, before he realized how much harder pulling out was going to be than first anticipated. Before he realized how much he liked it. 

“Snakes are badass,” Hunter declared, pushing his glasses up the lightly perspiring bridge of his nose. Justin smiles in this awed way, this face-splitting little kid smile that says _I don’t understand you, but I want more. Tell me everything._ “I hate snakes,” Justin admits then, moving his hand back to his side of the table and leaving a aching absence against Hunter’s skin, which makes the rest of his nerves sing frantically for more contact. The vast sea of differences between them fascinates Justin, but it terrifies Hunter. He thinks it’s because he’s older, because he’s seen this kind of thing fail. He told that to Justin once, who just told him that he wasn’t _that_ much older, which is true. Hunter pushes all of this aside, forces his mouth to move. 

“Really?” He says, cocking his head and looking at his tattoo, one of favorites, at that. 

“They scare the shit out of me, dude. Seriously. They’re one of the three things in the world I’m terrified of.” He holds up three fingers but doesn’t volunteer what the other two stand for, which Hunter guesses means he’s supposed to ask. 

“Snakes and what?” He says automatically, placing his fingers to the location Justin’s just abandoned, like he’s chasing the warmth. 

“Snakes, sharks, and then dying unloved,” Justin announces. His eyes are painfully honest as he states this fact, as if he were revealing something more impersonal than his greatest fear. Hunter doesn’t want it to happen, but his gut knots, his heart squeezes like it were held in a fist. Hunter doesn’t want to, but he hears himself saying, “You won’t,” low and scraped raw. 

~*~

It’s not just snakes. It’s _everything._ Everything but sex and glasses. 

This time it happens in Hunter’s bed, at some obscene hour in the morning with their shirts still on, clinging to chests with a sheen of still-cooling sweat. Justin is absentmindedly singing, off-key and unguarded and the only sound in the whole, lonely room. He traces along the lines of Hunter’s throat, fingers soft and touch feather-light, balanced on his Adam’s apple and tapping there in time to his voice, high and raspy. Hunter imagines that it sounds that way because his throat is sore from swallowing only minutes ago, and he smiles at the thought, eyes closed. 

It takes Hunter a few more bars of the song to figure out what it is. “Are you singing Dolly Parton?” He snorts, the force of it making Justin’s fingers jerk along his throat with the vibration. Justin snickers, his lips the only softness against Hunter’s temple amid all the scratchy stubble. “Good job, baby” He responds lazily, breath warm. “Dolly’s _If Tear Drops Were Pennies._ ” Then it’s back to crooning gently almost in Hunter’s ear. 

Justin does that sometimes, lets pet names like _baby_ slip out easily, integrated unaffectedly in their conversation. Every time it happens, it slides like ice down Hunter’s spine, finally stopping to rest hot and coiled insidiously in his lower abdomen. It makes him sick with a combination of want, fear, and pride, all melted together and cajoling for their rightful place in his betraying body. He shifts onto his side to face Justin, ghosting his hand up the hard, smooth planes of muscle under his tee-shirt, fingers tracing the familiar raw lines they left there minutes ago. 

“God, you’re such a twink. And you have questionable taste,” he mumbles and it comes out almost sickeningly affectionate. Justin smiles dopily, nuzzling into Hunter’s shoulder and sighing. Justin is so much taller but out of the two, he’s the one who burrows, who tries his hardest to crawl inside Hunter. This is a shame, because out of the two, Hunter’s the one whose harder to crack open. Hunter is the one who resists invasion.

“You don’t even give my country music a _chance,_ ” Justin complained, mouthing along Hunter’s shoulder and applying pressure with his teeth, tongue sweeping the sting away. In spite of himself Hunter groans, using an open palm at the base of Justin’s skull to trap him there, forcing him to bite. It’s true, he doesn’t tolerate the country thing. Seriously, it’s _country._ As a musician Hunter is appreciative of, or at least _tolerant_ of most genres, but there are exceptions to every rule, and country happens to be his. 

Justin’s favorite band is Coldplay. (Admittedly not terrible, but arguably overrated.) His knowledge of punk or any of the contemporary genres which were born from punk is limited to AFI (because of Hunter) and what Hunter has introduced him to. And, above all, Justin Timberlake mysteriously loves country music, in its various shapes and forms and hybrids. All of it, from Kenny Chesney to Taylor Swift. Because of Justin, Hunter can sing you the chorus of Craig Morgan’s ode to tractors, _International Harvester._

It’s not that these things completely make or break a relationship (not that a relationship is what they’re doing, exactly,) but it does worry Hunter. It does make him wonder what will happen between them when _this_ , this tangible, gut-churning chemical lust they have for each other that makes them fuck before they even get their _clothes off_ wears away over time, and they’re left with their interests, their passions. None of which cross over. 

Hunter wonders if it will hurt less if he pulls out now. He tries not to think of that though, not at this instant anyway when he’s just gotten and given head, when he’s content and half-asleep already from the few meandering bars of _If Teardrops Were Pennies_ Justin keeps singing. He tries not to think of anything when his mouth is being covered my Justin’s, his body covered by Justin’s as he slings himself low and heavy and huge on top of Hunter, tongue sliding against inside of his mouth and a crushed groan echoing in both of their ribcages. His hands betray his fears and fist in Justin’s shirt, pulling him even lower so he can’t breathe under his weight, and he tries not to think of anything, but the one phrase that gets stuck on his heart is: _I couldn’t pull out if I tried right now. Not even if I tried._ And incidentally, Hunter can’t tell if the feeling in his chest is failing, or falling. 

~*~  
Hunter collects wooly mammoth related objects and old R&B vinyl. Justin collects sneakers and sports jerseys. The first time Justin reveals this particular quirk to Hunter, he actually laughs, struck in the stomach by the yawning desert of difference between them. Hunter did a shoe commercial once, but that was more for the vegans and less for the sneakers themselves. He isn’t a shoe enthusiast or anything, not like Justin. Justin has an entire room in his Malibu house that is entirely dedicated to framed and signed jerseys on the wall, some bizarre sports shrine Hunter only imagined existed before he witnessed it first hand. Hunter knows because he’s fucked Justin there, he’s bent him over the pool table and taken him from behind, right beside the picture window overlooking the infinity pool, memorizing Billy McNeill’s messy scrawled signature on a jersey on the opposite wall. 

Same city, different worlds. Perhaps Hunter realizes this in full when he surveys Justin’s sneaker collection, all of those leather creations, all of those dead cows staring back at Hunter the Guilty Vegan with big sorrowful brown eyes. It doesn’t anger or disgust Hunter as much as it should, and that in and of itself is terrifying. Hunter still wants to fuck Justin, he still _needs_ to fuck him, even though he collects objects fashioned from Hunter’s biggest moral cause. This is troublesome on so many levels, this tightens a fist made of ice around Hunter’s windpipe and squeezes, forcing all the air out of his body so nothing is left but fear, wide eyed and paralyzed. 

He can’t remember being with someone who scared him more than it scares him to be with Justin. And that’s ridiculous, really, because in spite of being a big A-lister and whatnot, Justin Timberlake is one of the least threatening and least judgmental people Hunter has ever met, let alone fucked. He’s a borderline saint. He listens to Hunter bitch, for one, and Hunter has to admit this isn’t the easiest pastime to endure.

Hunter spends a lot of time bitching about Davey, about Davey’s incessant nit-picky criticism of Hunter’s performance, Davey’s overall self-involved bullshit. “All he has to do is stand there, look pretty, and sing. I’m the one actually wielding an instrument and trying not to fuck up, and I’m the one who gets backlash for missing the cue every once and awhile,” he complains one time, sharing a Cruzer pizza with Justin, who manages to finish three slices before realizing it’s vegan, which is a testament to how fuckin’ good it is. Hunter immediately regrets the _stand there and look pretty_ comment the minute it leaves his mouth, recalling almost after the fact that Justin doesn’t play an instrument, Justin’s a singer like Dave. 

He expects Justin to remind him of this, act hurt or affronted at the very least, but instead Justin chews his pizza thoughtfully, holding the half-eaten slice with an oddly elegant angling of his wrist. After a moment of concentration he swallows, eyes falling on Hunter as he explains, “It’s messed up that he gives you shit, but I don’t think you should take is personally. It doesn’t have to do with you. From what you’ve told me about Davey, it seems like he has a lot to prove...maybe he cuts you down because he needs to build himself up.” Justin says all of this with a blatant sympathetic understanding towards both Davey and Hunter, brow furrowed in this almost painfully sincere manner that infuriates Hunter, and makes his insides warm. 

“Why are you so goddamn insightful?” Hunter sighs meaningfully after a pause, pressing into the length of his thigh, (which is flush along Justin’s) as they sit too close on the couch with the open box of pizza on the floor in front of them. Justin has this hidden talent to become surprisingly perceptive, to sum up the most complex of social mysteries to Hunter in a wise one liner. 

Justin shrugs and looks complacent, his wide palm moving to rest heavy and too-hot at the nape of Hunter’s neck, which he rubs. “I’m just trying to be a helpful guy,” he shrugs. “Maybe I kinda identify with this Davey guy. You know, he must feel like shit onstage up there next to you, baby. You’re so fuckin’ handsome, you probably forget what us scrawny kids feel like.” He’s clearly joking, seeing as he’s almost twice as tall and heavy as Hunter is. All the same, Hunter’s feeling good about himself, he’s feeling attractive. His palm slides between Justin’s thighs, high enough up to be suggestive without being obscene. He squeezes gently, letting his lips drop to the tendon in Justin’s neck where he breathes, “You know how to make a guy feel...” And he trails off, words getting lost as skin touches skin. 

He doesn’t know what Justin makes him feel. But the fact he’s feeling anything has to be a testament to how fuckin’ good it is. 

~*~

 

He has Justin trapped against the kitchen counter, his face down on the cutting board and his basketball shorts a forgotten puddle on the floor. Hunters fingers are second-knuckle deep in his ass, crooked and thrumming against places deep inside him, his heart lurching at the pained, needy hiss escaping Justin’s clenched teeth. “Please baby,” Justin says breathily, spreading his strong thighs wider to admit Hunter’s narrower frame, “I want your cock inside of me,” and at that, Hunter is near panic, but he doesn’t know why. 

There’s a fist of terror climbing from his throat, scrambling at the slick sides and tightening around his vocal cords. His feet are rooted to the granite kitchen floor. His eyes are fixed on the strong, smooth and youthful curves created by all that working muscle in Justin’s back, flexing and twitching with desire as he submits to Hunter’s hands, pressing insistently to the back of his neck. “Hunt?” Justin asks, prompted by the way Hunter’s fingers are sliding from him. He looks over his shoulder, face heartbreakingly handsome and bright and golden like all these things Hunter used to wish he could be, but has long since realized were never his. He wipes the wet of his fingers on his own shirt, which is still on, and steps away. He’s shaking. 

“I...” he starts, thinking of what exactly he is. He’s too old. He’s too bitter. He’s too calloused and resentful of so many years of wasted punk-rock ideals, he’s too reliant on his sense of humor to disguise the shit burning underneath, he’s too _tired._ He’s too hardened. Too rough around the edges and stormy and unshaven and unwashed while Justin is this fucking statue, unblemished and unexperienced and idealistic. He’s all of these things, but above all he’s a coward. He’d pulling out because it feels too fucking good. 

Justin is still spread out over the counter, fisting his own hard cock, eyes searching, the picture of everything Hunter should want, _does_ want. “Baby?” He says one last time and all of Hunter’s resolve crumbles and he’s right back there touching his skin to Justin’s skin, his chest to his back, his mouth to his jaw. “You...” he says darkly, unsure of where his mind is going but well aware that his fingers are seeking heat again, ghosting against the place he knows he can press inside of Justin, where Justin will let him press inside because he’s not scared of all of this like Hunter is. 

“Fuck me,” Justin hisses, voice dirty and low. He nudges Hunter’s mouth open with his fingers, skating them along his teeth and deeper then. Hunter is sucking despite his better judgement, groaning around the digits and blinded by the way Justin’s ass is so willing, so warm against his hard-on. “I just want all of you, baby, all of you filling me, please, fucking _god_ just come inside of me...”Justin mumbles, and because Hunter has never been good at resisting commands, he aligns his dick with Justin’s well-lubed asshole and slides home, slamming in balls deep so hard that they both become breathless panting wrecks falling apart and into each other. Hunter is reminded of shore-rocks being battered to wet dust courtesy of the ocean’s strength and fury, and if becomes harder and harder to breathe. 

His palm is wide-open and possessive over Justin’s heart, and he keeps it there while he fucks him into the counter, face buried in tense, sweating flesh, eyes shut tight and blood in his mouth while he bites his lip all the way through. He finishes with Justin’s name in his lips, and absolutely nothing else in his mind or heart or anywhere else, and he might be the one physically inside Justin, but his Hunter knows that a claim has been laid upon his person and he cannot pull away. 

His eyes are still closed when Justin reaches behind him and lays a trembling hand to the back of Hunter’s skull and keeps it there.

~*~

When Hunter pulls out, he doesn’t plan it. It’s not like the times prior when he sat listing all their differences and rehearsing scripts in front of the mirror. It just falls out of him unexpectedly, this lazy, almost _good_ day between them when they’re laying side by side on Justin’s king-sized bed in Malibu, still sloppy and sated from sex. Hunter doesn’t decide anything, he just rolls over on his side to face Justin, whose brow is furrowed in deep thought. Perhaps it’s easy _because_ it’s a good day, because he doesn’t have to think. 

“Justin?” he finds himself asking, hand only inches away from splaying deceitfully across the sloping curve of his shoulder. Justin is startled from his reverie, previously glazed over eyes becoming bright and fixing on Hunter. “Hmm?” He asks, clearly not expecting this, expecting _anything_. His lips are parted only slightly, half formed around the promise of tear drops becoming pennies. 

“Do you ever wonder why you’re in love with me?” Hunter says. His use of the phrase _in love_ shocks them both, a phrase reserved almost solely for the times Justin’s drunk, they’re both very tired, or the room is dark and impossible and it almost doesn’t count because of this. Justin’s quiet for a moment, studying the map of veins and tendons on the back of his left hand. 

“No. I don’t wonder about it, I just feel it. Why, should I wonder? Do you ever wonder why you’re happy, or just enjoy the moment?” Justin asks, turning the question around on Hunter, who balks slightly before recovering in full. Hunter doesn’t over think being happy, but he does, and always has, over thought being depressed. That’s the thing about depression, it doesn’t _warrant_ a thought process, doesn’t warrant a reason, so one wonders why they feel depressed. Justin doesn’t understand this, because he clearly _isn’t_ depressed. Hunter places this in his file cabinet between the snake and Craig Morgan, because this is about to blow up in his face. 

“You should wonder because it doesn’t make _sense,_ ” Hunter says and it sounds too bitter, so bitter that Justin sits up, clearly feeling attacked and vulnerable out on his back. 

“Sense? Love doesn’t make sense, baby, that’s the whole point,” Justin says this with a smile but he looks nervous, like he’s scrambling for footholds on a slowly disintegrating shore, the tide taking him farther and farther away from Hunter and Hunter’s decision. His answer is just driving Hunter further away, however, because it’s proving his point. Justin doesn’t understand, he’s too young and idealistic to grasp that sure, in some stupid romance-novel universe, love doesn’t make sense, but _relationships_ do. They have to, in order to function. 

“We have _nothing_ in common,” Hunter says desperately, cutting to the chase in a way that makes him sound crazy, like he’s already bought the ticket home, already pulled out. Like he’s trying to convince himself of something he doesn’t fully believe. Something he fears. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Hunt, where are you going with this?” Justin’s brow is furrowed, hand a clenched fist tight at his side. Hunter imagines the little half moons his nails would create in the flesh of his palm. 

“I’m worried that you love me now, but when you finally _stop_ for three seconds and _look_ at me, you’ll realize I’m right.” Hunter says, his heart pounding and mouth suddenly dry. They’re both sitting now, the air around them transformed into a crackling mess of electricity, tense and pulled taut like a live wire. Justin swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly in his throat as it works around something to say to that. He reaches onto the bedside table for his glasses, which he slides on carefully, putting on a defensive layer of glass. Hunter instinctively grabs for his, on the pillow behind him. 

“If you stopped having one foot out the _door_ for three seconds, you’d realize that I have looked at you. I am always looking at you.” Justin says evenly, and the fear is back in Hunter’s throat, tight and searing and blinding, making him sputter. 

“Then you should know. We are polar opposites, man, you and I have nothing in common,” Hunter’s voice has this reedy, desperate quality tainting it again, like he’s the one scrambling at the shore now. The tide pulls at his feet, and his palms become raw and bloody with the effort. Justin, on the other hand has become stoic and still, like he knows what Hunter’s thinking and what Hunter’s trying to do and what Hunter’s _really_ afraid of. 

“What don’t we have in common?” Justin offers, shifting imperceptibly closer to Hunter on the bed, almost as if he can grab him in case he bolts.   
“Everything,” He chokes.   
“Well, lets start with something.” Justin looks expectant. 

Hunter’s mind is suddenly blanks, even though he knows that he has a whole file cabinet full somewhere just for this purpose. He blurts the first one he can think of.   
“Our music. I know you love mine and I love yours, but the shit we _listen_ to...dude, you like Craig Morgan. You sing me Dolly Parton.” Hunter half-laughs the last part out, and Justin laughs a little too, even though none of this is funny. 

“Are you being serious right now?” Justin asks, but before Hunter can tell him, _very serious_ Justin is launching into all the reasons why he’s wrong. “That’s one genre. You’re completely disregarding all of the R &B records we have, all the 70’s stuff, plus Johnny Cash, Marvin Gaye, every motown album ever released...Hunter, we _met_ because we were the only two people in the room who appreciated the same kind of music.” Justin explains with this awful, sucker-punch logic, logic that knocks a hole right through half of Hunter’s file cabinet. He tries a different approach. 

“You collect sneakers and I’m a vegan. You like sports, and cars. You collect motorcycles, and I have a fuckin’ hybrid,” Hunter argues, knowing in some curled up, fetal part of himself that this is all a load of crap and doesn’t really matter in a relationship. They’re different, sure, but shoes and cars aren’t quite cutting it. Justin sighs, shedding light on his poorly constructed ruse. 

“Baby, I’d gladly sell all of my shoes if it would mean you’d give up on this bullshit. They’re just shoes. This is me and you.” He is so earnest that Hunter wants to cry in frustration, punch a hole in the wall. To prevent such catastrophic events from occurring, he stands up, pacing the length of the room with his head in his hands, trying to fathom how weak the plank he was walking truly was, trying to calculate the risk of it snapping.

“Hunter, come sit down,” Justin urges, patting the empty bed space next to him, but Hunter shakes his head, continues pacing. His glasses are almost fogging up with how hard he’s breathing. 

“Your friends are nothing like my friends,” Hunter puts out there, and Justin makes a small, disbelieving sound between a scoff and a snort. 

“How would you know?! You’ve never met my friends, and you won’t let me meet yours,” Justin says, voice barely below a yell. Of course, what he is saying is right. Spot on, actually. This is as close as they’ve ever gotten to a fight, and Hunter is losing terribly, drowning while Justin throws him life vest after life vest, all of which he refuses to grab onto. 

Hunter manages to shout one last thing over the storm before he goes under. Standing rooted to the spot and staring at Justin with his hands dug into his temples, Hunter declares in a broken voice, “I am so, so much older than you.” 

Then Justin is standing too, approaching Hunter slowly like a trained professional. He’s shaking his head, and Hunter’s aware that his own eyes are streaming, fogging up his glasses and streaking his rough cheeks in salt and wet. He can taste it on his lips, and he almost throws a punch at Justin when he gets close enough, but Justin grabs his fist in a strong hand to prevent it, pushing him back and back and back until he’s trapped between the wall and a body, lips at his hairline murmuring things. 

Hunter stops trying to pull out, then, because it feels too, too good as Justin holds him, wraps two insanely strong arms around his back and presses him to his chest too tight to allow for any movement. Hunter inhales raggedly, tasting salt and blood and fear, but only a muted version of this cocktail he’s so used to swallowing, day after day. He spits it out, smearing his mouth across the curve of Justin’s shoulder and Justin says, “You’re not that much older, Hunt.” 

Hunter pulls away but only partially, just so he can look at Justin, his stubbled face and kind eyes, which are obscured by the smudged lenses of his glasses. He reaches for them, removing them from the bridge of Justin’s nose and pressing a kiss to the slight indentation they leave there. He wants to see his eyes in full, wants to see what he can’t pull out of. It’s then that Hunter realizes that his greatest fear is dying unloved, too.

 _but you don’t have to._

They’re kissing before Hunter can say anything else stupid, his breath trapped between two pairs of lips and a persistent tongue. Justin’s palms move up to cup Hunter’s cheeks, hold his face aligned as he kisses him deeply, hungrily, like he’s afraid to breathe. When he pulls away, he mumbles, “It doesn’t have to make sense to last. You know, I’m scared too. But that’s not a good enough reason to quit.” 

Hunter looks down, studying the rough, familiar line of Justin’s jaw. He’s not an artist but he thinks he could draw it from memory, and he thinks that has to count for something. Justin’s hands are pulling the glasses from his eyes, then, revealing the petrified, blown open sky blue without a safety net. Hunter blinks, and thinks that Justin was afraid of snakes, but he touched his arm that day anyway. 

“You’re right.” He admits to Justin then, and Hunter can’t tell if the feeling in his chest is failing, or falling, but he no longer cares one way or the other.


End file.
